Impact of wave packet separation in low-energy sterile neutrino searches

Argüelles, C.; Bertólez-Martínez, Toni; Salvadó, Jordi

doi:10.1103/physrevd.107.036004

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…reactor neutrinos, estimates are more uncertain, ranging from ∼ 20 MeV to ∼ 1 eV [34][35][36][37][38], with corresponding suppression of the potential from neutrinos of 1 MeV over distances larger than ∼ 10 −14 m to ∼ m.…”

Section: Jhep04(2023)039mentioning

confidence: 99%

On neutrino-mediated potentials in a neutrino background

Blas

Esteban

González-García

et al. 2023

J. High Energ. Phys.

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The exchange of a pair of neutrinos with Standard Model weak interactions generates a long-range force between fermions. The associated potential is extremely feeble, ∝ $$ {G}_F^2/{r}^5 $$ G F 2 / r 5 for massless neutrinos, which renders it far from observable even in the most sensitive experiments testing fifth forces. The presence of a neutrino background has been argued to induce a correction to the neutrino propagator that enhances the potential by orders of magnitude. In this brief note, we point out that such modified propagators are invalid if the background neutrino wavepackets have a finite width. By reevaluating the 2-ν exchange potential in the presence of a neutrino background including finite width effects, we find that the background-induced enhancement is reduced by several orders of magnitude. Unfortunately, this pushes the resulting 2-ν exchange potential away from present and near-future sensitivity of tests of new long-range forces.

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Section: Jhep04(2023)039mentioning

confidence: 99%

On neutrino-mediated potentials in a neutrino background

Blas

Esteban

González-García

et al. 2023

J. High Energ. Phys.

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“…[35,59] consider a term similar to ξ en and perform a phenomenological analysis using reactor data to set a lower bound on a "coherence length", finding δ > 2.1 × 10 −4 nm, which corresponds to σ = 1/(2δ) < 0.47 MeV. This value has also been adopted by [26] to study the impact on sterile neutrino oscillations in short-baseline experiments. This value of the decoherence parameter is of similar order as the energy resolution of the detectors, 5-6 orders of magnitude larger than the intrinsic quantum uncertainty, and therefore fully dominated by the classical averaging effect [27].…”

Section: Effective Energy-momentum Spreads and Decoherence Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For early papers on the topic see [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], some examples of further investigations are e.g., [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Recently, this discussion received further attention in the context of short-baseline reactor [18][19][20][21] and radioactive source Gallium experiments [22][23][24][25] searching for sterile neutrino oscillations [26][27][28][29][30]. These papers discuss the question whether quantum decoherence could help to reduce tension in the data [26,30] which arises in standard sterile neutrino explanations, see e.g., [31][32][33][34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, this discussion received further attention in the context of short-baseline reactor [18][19][20][21] and radioactive source Gallium experiments [22][23][24][25] searching for sterile neutrino oscillations [26][27][28][29][30]. These papers discuss the question whether quantum decoherence could help to reduce tension in the data [26,30] which arises in standard sterile neutrino explanations, see e.g., [31][32][33][34]. Possible decoherence effects in the upcoming high-precision JUNO reactor experiment have been discussed in Refs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Decoherence effects in reactor and Gallium neutrino oscillation experiments -- a QFT approach

Krueger¹,

Schwetz²

2023

Preprint

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We adopt the quantum field theoretical method to calculate the amplitude and event rate for a neutrino oscillation experiment, considering neutrino production, propagation and detection as a single process. This method allows to take into account decoherence effects in the transition amplitude induced by the quantum mechanical uncertainties of all particles involved in the process. We extend the method to include coherence loss due to interactions with the environment, similar to collisional line broadening. In addition to generic decoherence induced at the amplitude level, the formalism allows to include, in a straightforward way, additional damping effects related to phase-space integrals over momenta of unobserved particles as well as other classical averaging effects. We apply this method to neutrino oscillation searches at reactor and Gallium experiments and confirm that quantum decoherence is many orders of magnitudes smaller than classical averaging effects and therefore unobservable. The method used here can be applied with minimal modifications also to other types of oscillation experiments, e.g., accelerator based beam experiments.

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“…These extensions include an arbitrary number of sterile states 128,129 , non-standard interactions which induce additional matter effects 130,131,132,133 or additional † decay modes that makes the sterile neutrino decay over distances typical of SBL experiments, to either visible 90,134,135 or invisible 136,137,138,139 final states. Moreover, it has been found that considering the finite wave-packet size might relax the significance of the light sterile neutrino explanation of some of the anomalies 140 .…”

Section: Fast Oscillationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing Explanations of Short Baseline Neutrino Anomalies

Foppiani

2023

Springer Theses

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The experimental observation of neutrino oscillations profoundly impacted the physics of neutrinos, from being well understood theoretically to requiring new physics beyond the standard model of particle physics. Indeed, the mystery of neutrino masses implies the presence of new particles never observed before, often called sterile neutrinos, as they would not undergo standard weak interactions. And while neutrino oscillation measurements entered the precision era, reaching percentlevel precision, many experimental results show significant discrepancies with the standard model, at baselines much shorter than typical oscillation baselines. Such experimental measurements include LSND, MiniBooNE, gallium experiments, and reactor antineutrino measurements. These short baseline anomalies seem to be explainable by the addition of a light sterile neutrino, with mass in the 1 − 10 eV range. However, this hypothesis is in strong tension with many null experimental observations. Other explanations that rely on models containing sterile states with masses in the 1 − 500 MeV could resolve the tension. In this thesis, we test both classes of models. On the one hand, we look for datasets collected at a short baseline which can constrain heavy sterile neutrino models. We find that the minimal model is fully constrained, but several extensions of this model could weaken the current constraint and be tested with current and future datasets. On the other hand, we test the presence of neutrino oscillations at short baselines, induced by a light sterile state, with the data collected by the MicroBooNE experiment, a liquid argon time projection chamber specifically designed to resolve the details of each neutrino interaction. We report null results from both analyses, further constraining the space of possible explanations for the short baseline anomalies. If new physics lies behind the short baseline anomaly puzzle, it is definitely not described by a simple model.

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Impact of wave packet separation in low-energy sterile neutrino searches

Cited by 13 publications

References 72 publications

On neutrino-mediated potentials in a neutrino background

On neutrino-mediated potentials in a neutrino background

Decoherence effects in reactor and Gallium neutrino oscillation experiments -- a QFT approach

Testing Explanations of Short Baseline Neutrino Anomalies

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